


Routine

by afterwit



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterwit/pseuds/afterwit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos realizes he's settled in here in Night Vale, but there's still the matter of that voice on the other end of the radio.  Set before Episode 25.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Routine

Somewhere between the third and fourth cup of coffee this morning, Carlos notices something has changed.

He can’t quite place it- it isn’t a feeling of anything, exactly, simply the realization that his walk down to his lab has passed as a blur this morning- he can’t remember anything beyond the vague sense that he woke up this morning, took a shower, got dressed, and took the stairs down to the workspace he shared with the rest of his team.

Normally, his mind is trained to observe things, to catalog evidence and data, and for a moment, he wondered if he is simply having an off day. He can’t recall how the wooden stairs creaked and sighed under his sneakers this morning…and that is odd.

It isn’t until the fifth cup of coffee, inspecting a clipping from a plant from the scrub wastes, that he realizes exactly what is different.

When he had first arrived in Night Vale, everything was novel, everything was curious and different. This isn’t exactly boredom, but now it seemed that certain things had faded into the background of his everyday life.

And that is the thing- that he even has an “everyday” here.

Night Vale is becoming routine. The city still has mysteries, but there are certain things he has accepted by now- that clocks are wrong, or perhaps that time doesn’t move as intended. And certainly, he has things that break up his day, that are remarkable, but some details are now so commonplace that they are no longer of importance.

He woke up every morning to the alarm on his phone. He went to sleep every night roughly around eleven-ish.

Somehow, in the time he has been in Night Vale, he has settled in. It isn’t exactly home, but no longer is it a strange and mystifying place. It is a city, it has buildings, there are certain rules here to be followed, and occasionally chaos seeps into the strange order by which people here live their lives- an order that would have been anything but in any other city.

——————————————————————————————————

Every Friday, at noon, Carlos leaves the lab and walks next door to Big Rico’s to buy a couple of pizzas for the team. He has interns now, from the Community College, and he realizes that perhaps he can learn as much from them as they can from him. He avoids looking at the mysterious hooded figure sitting at a table, and tips exactly five dollars into the jar. 

Big Rico isn’t always in at this hour, and the kid behind the counter looks fresh out of high school and has a few stray blemishes on his face. He thanks him for the tip, and Carlos nods politely. At a small table near the door, someone has a large, flat rock next to their plate, and the stone is deep red, with veins that almost reflect the light. They murmur something at it, in a language he can almost recognize.

Normal.

———————————————————————————

“Hey, Carlos?”

He looks up from the microscope. It’s an intern, staying late and organizing his recordings of their findings- since he’d realized that writing instruments are banned, he has purchased a digital recorder and loaded everything onto the main computer in the lab.

“Going for the night?”

She nodded, and he leaned back, resting a hand on his knee. “Well, you have a good one. I’ll lock up.”

And then he is alone again, and he realizes that he no longer takes comfort in being alone in the empty lab until the late hours of the night. He puts the sample of insect wing away, and trudges up the steps to the small apartment he is renting.

Dinner is a sandwich, and he almost sits down and turns on the TV before he realizes that the only things on the educational channels right now are reality shows.

So, instead, like most every night, he turns on the radio.

“…and I would say it’s a must-see for any European traveler that can find it.”

He smiles, though he’s maybe not exactly sure why yet, or even if he really wants to know. He has a sort of acquaintanceship with the voice, and he knows that Cecil is fond of him- the whole town knows. Somewhere in the span of nearly a year, he’s grown fond of coming home at night and listening to that voice on the radio. It started as research- Cecil often had very up-to-date information about things around the city, and then, like everything else, it somehow became routine.

He eats, finishing his sandwich and resting his head against the back of the couch. He closes his eyes, to help him listen more intently to the rest of the radio broadcast- one that he knows he’ll be able to get a recording of later.

The show is always curious, sometimes terrifying, sometimes amusing, and before Carlos is really ready for it to be over, he hears the show closing.

“…stay tuned next for, well, let’s just find out together, shall we? Goodnight, Night Vale, goodnight.”

He fishes the phone from his jeans pocket. He has Cecil’s number, he knows, but what would he even say to him? He hesitates, and sets the phone down next to him on the sofa.

Maybe tomorrow.


End file.
